BY TIM MORRIS
Staff Writer
VERONICA YANKOWSKI staff A trio of Freehold Raceway’s more familiar names, including the legendary Cat Manzi, will compete in a special race through the streets of Freehold Borough on Saturday in celebration of the Raceway’s 150th year of operation.
Before Freehold Raceway began hosting harness races, local farmers would settle the matter of who had the fastest horse themselves, country style.
They would bring their horses and carts, and race down the area’s country roads. Their favorite route took them from the American Hotel on Main Street in Freehold Borough to Moore’s Tavern, where drinks would be on the loser.
Freehold Raceway is recreating the roots of harness racing on Saturday with a race down Main Street, as the raceway celebrates 150 years of racing.
Ceremonies will start at 9 a.m. near the state of Columbia Triumphant, followed by a three-horse race at 9:30.
The course for Saturday’s race will start in the center of the Borough (the site of the old American Hotel), take the drive west on Main Street to the Freehold Raceway parking lot on Route 537. The length is just under one mile.
Three drivers will compete in this special race, all familiar names to Freehold followers — Cat Manzi, Harold Kelly and Dennis Dowd.
Hall-of-Famer Manzi, who makes Freehold his home, is the current driving champion at the race track. Kelly. who lives in Manalapan, is a former driving star at the track himself. Dowd is the former president of Freehold Raceway, and an amateur driver as well.
The race will be for charity, with each driver representing a charity. The winner driver’s charity will receive a $500 check in the Freehold winner’s circle afterward. Kelly will be driving for the Old Freehold Day Committee, Manzi for the Freehold volunteer fire department and Dowd for the Freehold Borough first aid.
Festivities at Freehold Raceway for the day will include free pony rides, clowns and face painters for children. Many food items will be specially priced at $1.50, and free commemorative T-shirts will be given to the first 2,000 people who purchase a Freehold program.
Qualifying races will be held at 10 a.m. on the half-mile racetrack, to give those unfamiliar with the sport a taste of what harness racing is about. The raceway’s regular program will start at 12:30 p.m.
The feature race of the day is the $150,000 final of the Battle of Monmouth.
It was in 1853 that the Monmouth County Agriculture Society was formed and held its first fair races. Racing could be traced back to the Freehold area to the 1830s, when they raced country style, before Freehold Raceway was built.
Since its humble beginnings, Freehold Raceway — through fires and hard times — became one of the leading harness tracks in North America.
Legends such as Stanley Dancer, William Haughton, Herve Filion and John Campbell have all made their presence known. Dancer, who hails from New Egypt, began his harness racing career there in 1941, the year that Freehold offered pari-mutuel betting for the first time ever in New Jersey.
Freehold Raceway provided other historic moments as well, such as in 1968, when Cardigan Bay became the first standardbred to earn more than $1 million in career earnings by winning a race at Freehold. Stanley Dancer was in the bike.
Albatross and Niatross, perhaps the greatest pacers in the sport’s history, are but two all-time great standardbreds that have raced at Freehold.
In 1976, Freehold held the first Dancer Memorial Pace for 3-year-olds, in honor of Stanley Dancer’s father James. B. With Stanley Dancer bringing eventual Horse of the Year Keystone Ore to the race, it marked the beginning of what would become one of the most important races in the country.
Niatross, Abercombie, Artsplace, Western Hanover and Cam’s Card Shark are just some of the great pacers that have won this race.
In 1998, Freehold Raceway hosted its first Triple Crown event, the Cane Pace.
Freehold Raceway has adapted to the times over this century-and-a-half.
In the 1970’s, the grandstand (first built in 1923) was enclosed and the track went from a summer meet to year-round racing. Simulcasting has become a major attraction since its introduction in the 1980’s